Lindsey Recommends: “Love You Down” by Da Bassment (1996)

I know you don’t know who Da Bassment is.
I know I have Ready for the World to thank for this classic.
I know that INOJ had a much more commercially successful cover of this song just a year later, in 1997.

But is the version I fell in love with.

I wish I were cool enough to be a slow jam purist. However, all the baby-makin’ R&B had already been remade (twice) by the time my love for the genre blossomed when I was 13 and my only interests were making out and music I could make out to. As a result, most of the songs I loved were remakes, like “Love You Down” by Da Bassment from The Nutty Professor soundtrack.

Oh, and don’t act like you weren’t making out to Eddie Murphy movie soundtracks in the ’90s and early aughts. Boomerang, The Nutty Professor, Dr. Doolittle, and their sequels were full of hip-hop and R&B that would make your mom blush. They were all seriously underrated compilations, in my opinion.

As I’ve grown up and my musical sensibilities have matured, I appreciate the work of Ready for the World (I can’t NOT Carlton dance to “Oh, Sheila”). But I had to be true to myself and recommend the version of this song that I listened to on repeat while applying too much Cover Girl foundation AND powder to my yet-to-be-ravaged-by-puberty face and practicing flirty smiles at my vanity mirror.